Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization of Money and Labor

The other day I was in a shopping mall looking for an ATM to get some cash. There was no ATM. A week ago, there was still a branch office of a local bank – no more, gone. A Starbucks will replace the space left empty by the bank. I asked around – there will be no more cash automats in this mall – and this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Switzerland and throughout western Europe. Cash machines gradually but ever so faster disappear, not only from shopping malls, also from street corners. Will Switzerland become the first country fully running on digital money?

This new cashless money model is progressively but brutally introduced to the Swiss and Europeans at large – as they are not told what’s really happening behind the scene. If anything, the populace is being told that paying will become much easier. You just swipe your card – and bingo. No more signatures, no more looking for cash machines – your bank account is directly charged for whatever small or large amount you are spending. And naturally and gradually a ‘small fee’ will be introduced by the banks. And you are powerless, as a cash alternative will have been wiped out.

The upwards limit of how much you may charge onto your bank account is mainly set by yourself, as long as it doesn’t exceed the banks tolerance. But the banks’ tolerance is generous. If you exceed your credit, the balance on your account quietly slides into the red and at the end of the month you pay a hefty interest; or interest on unpaid interest – and so on. And that even though interbank interest rates are at a historic low. The Swiss Central Bank’s interest to banks, for example, is even negative; one of the few central banks in the world with negative interest, others include Japan and Denmark.

When I talked recently to the manager of a Geneva bank, he said, it’s getting much worse. ‘We are already closing all bank tellers, and so are most of the other banks’. Which means staff layoffs – which of course makes it only selectively to the news. Bank employees and managers must pass an exam with the Swiss banking commission, for which they have study hundreds of extra hours within a few months to pass a test – usually planned for weekends, so as not to infringe on the banks’ business hours. You got to chances to pass. If you fail you are out, joining the ranks of the unemployed. The trend is similar throughout Europe. The manager didn’t reveal the topic and reason behind the ‘retraining’ – but it became obvious from the ensuing conversation that it had to do with the ‘cashless overtake’ of people by the banks. These are my words, but he, an insider, was as concerned as I, if not more.

Surveillance is everywhere. Now, not only our phone calls and e-mails are spied on, but our bank accounts are too. And what’s worse, with a cashless economy, our accounts are vulnerable to be invaded by the state, by thieves, by the police, by the tax authority, by any kind of authority – and, of course, by the very banks that have had your trust for all your life. Remember the ‘bail-ins’ first tested in early 2013 in Cyprus? – Bail-ins will become common practice for any bank that has abused its greed for profit and would go belly-up, if there wouldn’t be all those deposits from customers. Even shareholders are not safe. This has been quietly decided on some two years ago, both in the US and also by the non-elected white-collar mafia, the European Commission – EC.

The point is, ‘banks über alles’. And which country would be better suited to introduce ‘cashless living’ than Switzerland, the epicenter – along with Wall Street – of international banking. Bank’s will call the shots in the future, on your personal economy and that of the state. They are globalized, following the same principles of deregulation worldwide. They are in collusion with globalized corporations. They will decide whether you eat or become enslaved. They are one of the tree major weapons of the 0.1 % to beat the 99.9% into submission. The other two at the service of the master hegemon’s Full Spectrum Dominance drive, are the war- and security industry and the ever more brazen propaganda lie-machine. Banking deregulation has become another little-propagated rule of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries who want to join WTO, must deregulate their banking sector, prying it open for the globalized money-sharks, the Zion-controlled banking conglomerates.

Retrenchment of personnel in the banking employment market is increasing. The news only selectively reports on it, when there are large amounts of jobs being eliminated. Statistics lie everywhere, in the EU as well as in Washington. – Why scare people? They will be scared enough, when they are offered jobs at salaries on which they can barely survive. That’s happening already. It used to be a tactic applied for developing countries: Keep them enslaved by debt and low pay, so they don’t have time and energy to take to the streets to protest – they have to look for food and work, whatever menial jobs they can get, to feed their families. It’s now hitting Europe, the West in general. Some countries way more than Switzerland.

Cashless trials are going on elsewhere, especially in Nordic countries, where selected department stores and supermarkets do no longer take cash. Another monstrous trial has been carried out in India a year ago, in the last quarter of 2016, where from one day to another 80% of the most popular money notes were eliminated, and could only be exchanged for new notes by banks and through bank accounts. And this in an almost pure cash country, where half the population has no bank account, and where remote rural areas have no banks. People were lied to so that the sudden introduction had maximum effect.

It caused massive famine and thousands of people died, as they had suddenly no acceptable cash to buy food – all instigated by the USAID Project ‘Catalyst’, in connivance with the Indian rulers and central bank. It was a trial. It was a disaster. If it works in India with 1.3 billion people, two thirds of whom live in rural areas and most of them have no bank account, the scam could be applied in any developing country – see also India – Crime of the Century – Financial Genocide http://thesaker.is/india-crime-of-the-century-financial-genocide/

What is going on in Switzerland is a trial with the high end of populations. How is the upper crust taking to such radical changes in our daily monetary routine? – So far not many protests have been noticed. There is a weak referendum being launched by a group of people who want the Swiss Central Bank be the only institution that can make money, like in the ‘olden days’. Though a very respectable idea, the referendum has no chance in today’s banking and debt-finance environment, where youth is being indoctrinated with the idea that swiping your card in front of an electronic eye is cool. Today, most money is made by private banks, like elsewhere in Europe and the US. Worldwide banking deregulation, initiated by the Clinton Administration in the 1990s – today a rule for any member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – has made this all possible.

Digitalization and robotization is just beginning. Staffed check-out counters in supermarkets are dwindling; most of them are automatic – and that happened within the last year. – Where are the employees gone? – I asked an attendant who helped the customers through the self-checkout. ‘They joined the ranks of unemployed’, she said with a sad face, having lost several of her colleagues. ‘It will hit me too, as soon as they don’t need me anymore to show the customers on how to auto-pay.’

Bitcoins

Digitalization also includes the cryptocurrencies, the blockchain moneys floating around – of which the most famous one is Bitcoin. It brings digitalization of money to an apex. The system is complex and seems to lend itself only to ‘experts’. Cryptocurrencies are fiat money, based on nothing, not even on gold. Cryptos are electronic, invisible and highly, but highly speculative, an invitation for gangsters and fraudsters. With extreme speculative values, it looks as if cryptocurrencies were designed for crooks and speculators.

Bitcoin was allegedly invented by Satoshi Nakamoto which could be a pseudonym of a man or a group of people, suspected to live in the US. “Nakamoto’s” identity is believed to be commonwealth origin, due to the vocabulary used in his writings. One of his close associates is purportedly a Swiss coder, who is also an active member of the cryptocurrency community. He is said to have graphed the time stamp of each of Nakamoto’s more than 500 bitcoin forum posts. Such ‘forum posts’ exist in the thousands, worldwide. They form an elaborate network based on algorithms.

Bitcoin was formally created in January 2009 with a fix amount of 21 million ‘coins’, of which more than half are already in circulation, and 1 million, or about 4.75% (of the total) can be traced to Nakamoto – which according to the current market value corresponds to close to US$15 billion. Today’s overall Bitcoin market cap is more than US$ 315 billion. The market is highly volatile. Drastic daily fluctuations are common, especially within the last 12 months. If one of the major Bitcoin holders, like Nakamoto, would capitalize his profit by selling a big portion of his holdings, the Bitcoin price would be in free fall, functioning pretty similar to the regular stock exchange.

On 24 August 2010, when Bitcoin was first traded, its value was US$ 0.06. On 24 December 2017, the coin was worth US$ 13,800, an increase of 230,000%. In the last twelve months, its value increased from about US$ 800 in December 2016 to a peak of close to US$ 20,000 in December 2017, an increase of nearly 2,500 %. However, in the last 7 days, the price has dropped by US$ 5,160, i.e. by more than 27%, and the trend seems to be downward; perhaps a sign of quick profit-taking? However, this shows how instable this cryptocurrency is, apparently much more so than trading corporate shares on the stock market.

The number of cryptocurrencies available over the internet as of 27 November 2017 is above 1300 and growing. A new cryptocurrency can be created at any time and by anyone. By market capitalization, Bitcoin is presently the largest blockchain network (database network, storing data in different publicly verifiable places), followed by Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.

Bitcoin may be the next bubble, bringing down a parallel economy which has already its fingers clawing into our regular western economy. Cryptocurrencies are officially forbidden in Russia and China, though stopping cryptocurrency dealings by individuals is hardly possible. They do not touch the traditional banking system. That’s why major banks hate them. They circumvent the banking suckers, prevent them from making ever higher profits from horrendous commissions, against which the people at large are powerless.

Here is Bitcoin’s positive value. It escapes bank and state controls. If countries’ economies were run on Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency, they would escape US sanctions which function only because western currencies are foster-children of the US-dollar, hence, subject to the dollar hegemony; meaning all international transactions have to pass through a US bank. A typical case is ‘banking blockades’, when Washington decides to stop all international transactions of a country until it submits to the wishes of the empire. It is blackmail; totally illegal, but unless there is a monetary alternative, the (western) world is subject to this system.

A typical case was Argentina, when she was forced by a New York judge in June 2014 to pay a New York based Vulture Fund US$1.6 billion, an illegal ruling according to a UN resolution. Argentina refuse to pay, so the judge, interfering in a sovereign nation, blocked more than US$ 500 million in Argentina’s debt payment to creditors, bringing Argentina to the brink of a second bankruptcy in 13 years. Eventually, neoliberal Macri negotiated a deal with the Vultures of a payment in excess of US$ 400 million.

This US blackmail would not have been possible had Argentina been able to make its foreign transactions in Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency. Venezuela is currently using a national cryptocurrency for some of its foreign transactions, thereby escaping the sanctions stranglehold of Washington. Had Greek and Cyprus citizens had a cryptocurrency alternative to the euro, they would not have been subject to the cash control imposed by the European Central Bank.

On the other hand, funding of terror organizations, like ISIS, cannot be disrupted, if the terror group deals in cryptocurrencies. – This shows, for good or for bad, Bitcoins, or cryptocurrencies are for now unique in resisiting censure and blackmail, or any kind of authoritarian outside interference in electronic money transactions.

Cashless Living

If Switzerland accepts the change to digital money, a country where until relatively recently most people went to pay their monthly bills in cash to the nearest post office – then we, in the western world, are on a fast track to total enslavement by the financial institutions. It goes, of course, hand-in-hand with the rest of systematic and ever faster advancing oppression and robotization of the 99.9% by the 0.1%.

We are currently at cross-roads, where we still can either decide to follow the discourse of a new electronic monetary era, with ever less to say about the product of our work, our money; or whether, We the People, will resist a banking / finance system that has full control over our financial resources, and which can literally starve us into submission or death, if we don’t behave. In order to resist we need an alternative monetary system or monetary network, away from the dollar-euro hegemony.

All the more important is the ascent of another economy, another payment and transfer scheme which already exists in the East, the Chinese International Paymen, totally System (CIPS), effectively a replacement of SWIFT, totally privately run and linked to the US-dollar and US banks. The world needs a multipolar economy, based on the real output of a country or society, as is the case in China and Russia, not one based on fiat money as is the current western economy.

Will Switzerland, the stronghold of world finance, along with New York, London and Hongkong, resist the temptation of increased profit, power and control, offered by digital money? – We, the People, have still the chance to decide either for continuing rotting in a fraud economy, based on wars and greed – for which digital money, exacerbated by cryptocurrencies, is a new tool for a new maximizing profit bonanza on the back of the common people; or do we opt for an honest future and for a life that leaves us free to take sovereign political and monetary decisions in a full cash society. For the latter we must wake up to see the propaganda fraud going on before our eyes, and to resist the robot and electronic money onslaught being unleashed on us.

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I lack the technical knowledge to assess whether hashgraph is a legitimate heir to bitcoin. Since I own some bitcoin and cryptos, I cringe at the idea that hashgraph can relegate all of my investments to the dustbin of history. Bitcoin experts Tone Vays and Jimmy Song argue in this video that hashgraph is a scam:

Tone Vays is only partially astute. I feel he is a decent guy, but has a blind spot for Bitcoin. He does not have a technical background and his technical analysis – I find is deeply flawed. I like the idea that he and Jimmy Song raise issues, but that is as far as I value their input. They like, Peter Todd and Chris DeRose are useful to think about, but are narrow in their outlook. I prefer Andreas, but he is now focusing on new talks for the uninitiated.

Thanks… I look forward to hearing what they have to say. None of these guys have strong academic backgrounds from what I recall.

Certainly, the one (1) million that Satoshi holds is problematic. The one to be concerned about is Ripple. It is/will be the corporate and the banker coin. I expect they will be the first to integrate with X.500 Directory Services… and this will be a real problem from a global cloud network perspective.

As late as it is, I feel we are still in early days in crypto. The real question is whether the USD fails/is brought down before we have anonimity in crypto. I find IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) to be important for privacy, but it has recently moved to the Ethereum network for economic reasons. Here, I think it suffers from the issues associated with Ethereum. I consider Ethereum to be a research project which has far too many problems with Turing Completeness; scalability; and the fact there is a fee charged to execute the code… forever. But since, it now hosts the majority of the ICOs, it looks like it is here to stay.

To me it seems that hashgraph is merely a communication protocol. Rather than require a game to find the answer to some meaningless math problem first, it instead sends smallish packages of information designed to reduce redundancy. It escapes the blockchain concept and instead creates a timestamp to a transaction and every receiver becomes a witness.

The real power of hashgraph is that we could communicate peer to peer rather than through a centralized network. For instance, if your phone and my phone were able to communicate directly (based on proximity) and we both agree to pass small packages around for others, we would never need cel towers again, provided there are sufficient phones in the loop. We all become messengers for each other, and according to the hashgraph math, apparently we’d each need to make no more than 30 random calls before a string to anyone else is discoverable, globally. (I may have that wrong, but I think that’s the story.)

Soon a coin will launch with the hash graph protocol, then some of the failing coins will hard fork, and if it works, then the main coins will eventually adopt. Bitcoin’s NYA group will eventually bow to the pressure to change, but probably not before it loses significant market share. I don’t think these brand names will be forgotten, instead, ethereum will change when Buterin decides it will change and the protocol will be rolling. Keep your ethers, they may dip but they probably won’t leave. Bitcoin will be the slowest one, but it too will leave blockchain.

Regarding encryption, if you and I each know a key to unlock the text’s meaning, and they have malware installed on your or my phone, they can probably read the key to unlock our communications easily. So I don’t really buy into the password = safe when encrypted concept, instead, I’m a fan of keeping my bits on a wallet / drive that is only connected periodically. Trading floors are fun, but they are anything but secure.

Fun stuff. I’d like to hear more of what you think after you’ve explored the product further.

Well, I agree with you on the security side. Thinkpad’s have a physical switch for the radio modem, as opposed to a software switch. If you use a ThinkPad and a virtual machine; and you only ever connect to your cellphone’s hotspot, to avoid geo-IP lookups… this may be the best one can do. Naturally, the VM would need to be clean and possibly used only once. Very tricky stuff. The more difficult part is a the hardware wallet… very early days. I tend to think that Voorhees will ensure that KeepKey brings out the best wallet.

I will look into the HashGraph, a bit more. I don’t like the patent. I guess you know about IPFS and mesh networks. I periodically run an experimental Go/ IPFS node to track its progress.

>> The one to be concerned about is Ripple. It is/will be the corporate and the banker coin. I expect they will be the first to integrate with X.500 Directory Services..

I agree with you, but I bet, as mr. McAfee, on Universa platform. It comes a little late to the party but it is more powerful and of wider appllicability. By the way why mr. Ray Ozzie is not in the board? The foundation of Universal Is the same of Domino-Notes. Nobody noticed?
We will see.

I think Bitcoin like the other pure crypto correncies are dead men walking.

That block-chain triple entry accountancy is a marvelous step on from double entry in decentralising trust structures and transactional relationships.

That the tractability of transaction history is a drool-worthy feature of rapacious banks and bankrupt governments in closing the cash ‘loophole’.

That globalisation requires a global conduit and unit of exchange, and it will not be / can not be the dollar.

That Satoshi’s white paper was funded by the NSA.

That Bitcoin is therefore almost certainly a government / globalist trial balloon, as are the other worldwide monetary experiments detailed in the article. Bitcoin itself really is far too shite, unscalable and inefficient to be anything but a government project.

(Yes, ripple is a the bankers tool of choice. For now.)

That ‘they’ of the article – globalists and bankers – have possibly underestimated that the far greater quantitative and qualitative talent lies outside their corridors of power, and that smarter minds have not taken the trace-ability of blockchain as its greatest feature, but the inherent tendency of the internet (and blockchain etc) towards decentralisation.

I have been wrestling what ‘decent’ people can accomplish individually and in groups. I have, I guess for the better part of a year, written fairly agressive criticisms of Ripple on XRPchat. I recently removed myself, as public forums where money is involved attracts the idiots. I can not be sure what – caliber of mind – is speaking. I did find that ‘writing’ helped clarify my own thoughts, which is consistent with what Chomsky believes to be the origins of communications. A very interesting discovery for myself.

It really is not clear to me, how politicians can make informed choices in the decentralization of blockchain applications that are coming down the road. I have been musing that it will only be through projects that demonstrate the draconian features, of say, tracking of crypto currency transaction histories.

The mantra of ‘decentralization’ is flawed. What we currently have, with multiple banks (silos) in different jurisdictions with unique legal frameworks is much more decentralized than a global blockchain. I should go back to the Satoshi paper to see if ‘he’ introduced the term.

You make a good point of problems with Bitcoin mining/proof of work… it is not sustainable or scalable. I recently paid $150 to move $700 BTC equivalent out of a Bitcoin exchange, while a family member paid $160 to move $ 8,000 BTC equivalent. The fees today are insane.

I am reflecting on your view of HashGraph being adopted by existing Blockchains.
—

According to hashgraph’s whitepaper there is a set constant ‘n’ = the number of members in the population upon which critical parts of the security of the algorithm is based (“famous” witness / “virtual” vote counting). But if it is constant, aside of arbitrary, it also neglects the natural dynamics expected of the system, the population is not constant and at the very least it must grow according to some adoption (if we still accept dormant members, ie. abstentions). Either the algorithm requires regular code update, or there will be a distortion on the security guarantees supposedly provided (Byzantine fault tolerance). Not to mention the absolute centralization with the development team.

I’m wondering if it would be possible to accommodate the emergent system dynamics into the algorithm, to counter above objections. Would it be possible in such a system to synchronize the actual total participants in effective time/rounds allowing for each member to proceed with so called virtual voting, would it still converge against corruption of data, malicious or not?

Another issue is, of course, scalability:

“Hashgraph consensus does not require any votes to be sent. Every member has a copy of the hashgraph.” (so enabling virtual voting) Following the explanation in this presentation I got the impression that the requirement of a full copy of the hashgraph is not required in has much as it is possible to participate intermittently, and only certain spans of rounds would be required to archive. Again, what would be the impact on the (de)centralization and security? Because if this would be akin to SPV/”light” wallets there would be no actual gain on this front either.

The reason i found hasgraph so interesting is that it allegedly attempts consensus without PoW proof-of-work, and its computing inefficiencies and propensity for centralization, or PoS proof-of-stake mostly pressing on the latter.

Google Catherine Austin-Fits… she agrees with you. She has said that Bitcoin is pay-op to attract the brightest talent and thereby accelerate the discovery and adoption process to a global crypto. She could be right.

The key will be whether the encryption is secure. I do not know. Bruce Schneir thinks it is, but I am really not sure. You will note, that nation state export regulations, limit encryption standards to less than 256 bytes, which is consistent with the cryptos are using to date.

Agreed, it seems inconceivable that any person or group outside of the world banking cartel could come up with a viable alternative to regular currency. Even a young dope peddler on a street corner will always chase away and even kill any competitor who arrives on his “turf”. The world banking cartel is just that, a cartel, they would crush by any means any competitor (crypto or otherwise) that seeks to encroach on their turf. To me, this is all a scam one way or the other.

There is an Economist article from ’88 that cites on its cover a new global digital currency in 2018. I do not have the reference, but, if you google ‘Phoenix new currency 2018 Economist’ you will probably find it. It even has a pic of ‘0’s and ‘1’s, – which was then, a very bold thought.

What is the point of cashless societies ? Population control. By removing cash, the populations in Switzerland and the EU are in fact reduced to slaves of the banks and governments. In the Middle Ages serfs had some coins with which to buy certain things. The populations in Europe are not being reduced to serfs, but to slaves Roman style, even though they are not so officially. The people will never see their cash, only their cards which are connected to their bank accounts. Those bank accounts can be closed any time. This means “you are either a good boy or girl who will obey, or we close your account and you starve”.

The question, ofcourse, which needs to be asked is if money like the euro, which is now printed backed by nothing, has any real value. As we all know, you cannot print money in huge amounts backed by nothing and not have that currency collapse in the end. I presume by removing cash from circulation the bankers are hoping to avoid currency crashes. However, I have my doubts if this will save them. Both Russia and China are preparing to introduce gold backed rubles and yuans, which means that gold still rules. We shall see how the EU will respond to this.

Agree. I always wondered when people are speaking of “now people should really wake up because its up to them”.
I have never seen anybody in 40 years “waking up” to anything.
They are braindead happy fools all of them, and they will do everything to take us down in the black hole with them!

“We are all in it together”.
“You should not think you can avoid to obey like we do”.
“Why do you think you are special”.
“What can you do about it? Nothing! Try to live your life like the rest of us”.

The problem is not the Zionist bankers, at least they have mercy with us if we work and give them energy.
The problem is the sheeple, they are merciless and they will kill us all!

Claudius: “He’s loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes”

Shakespeare’s life work was to point out the hypocrisy of those in power and to satirise the post Reformation leadership and their disgusting, evil and corrupt theft and abuses of power. ‘Hamlet’ rages throughout about revenge and procrastination about taking revenge. Shakespeare could not abide the docile response of the English plebs, the ‘distracted multitude’ to the outrages and excesses of the 16th century. They are embodied in Hamlet’s mother, who weakly agrees to sleep with and marry her dead husbands brother and murderer.

He retired to Stratford-on-Avon in 1597 having really achieved nothing material towards what was clearly an intense political and spiritual conviction. From that neighborhood came all the Guy Fawkes gang in 1605 – the recusant Catholic families, who attempted to force a change and shift the sheep into action. It ended badly.

You can not blame the distracted masses. Look rather to the great figures of long term change in history. Christ, Ghandi, etc. The masses want sacrifice and justice in their leadership, who brings peace, not revolution. When you find one such, not a shouting Bepe Grillo, you have the man to turn the masses.

The middle ages. The wall around a town and the wall around a castle. A lord keeping his people safe against marauding knights and bandits?

Almost everything you need to know about the globalisation cartel can be understood by studying the microcosm of a medieval castle and keep.

‘Keep’. It is called a ‘keep’.

A castle’s arrow slits point mostly into the keep, at the population.

No man builds a castle and wall of such proportions to defend a family from attack possibly once in two generations.

No man honorably defends a servant/surf population with a mighty wall where he also maintains the absolute right to despoil every woman on her wedding night. Building a wall is always – still is – a fiscal calculation.

The wall demarks an authorised trading area. It has little to do with defense. No sly way into or out of the trading arena.

Everything outside the wall is owned by the land lord. The population work every day for the landlord, and holy days (1/3 of the year) for themselves.

The town or keep gates are points of excise for produce passing into and out of the town.

The hierarchy issues its own currency, used in town trade.

Everything outside the keep is barter.

The land lord regularly terrorizes the population outside the gates, cracking down on monetary profit taken outside his gates, giving regular shakedowns of whole villages, forcing trade into the keep.

Now we understand the Europe wide figure of Robin Hood, the shake-down Sheriff of Nottingham etc.

Now we understand the role of the Monastries in creating a balance of power (don’t start me on this – you’ll regret it).

Now we understand that – all the post ‘reformation’ propaganda to one side – that from 1536 in the UK essentially across Europe the landlords stole the entire calendar from the serfs turning them into slaves, culminating in the enclosures acts of the 1700’s, entirely confiscating their freedom to the immeasurable gain of the very few.

Now we see that nothing really ever changes, and that globalisation is the same old same old.

The internet is a river that the landlord must run under his keep wall. Altcoins are the plebs little fish that are too fine for the henchmen’s nets. This is the great dilemma: he can’t cut off the river, and so has to live with the fish, knowing that they make the wall first permeable, and later irrelevant.

I fear that the EU/US “response” to this is going to be war. From what I have experienced and read about, the war is well underway…….and the war Is Against the people, whether in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and do not forget the vast parts of the US that have been devastated by fires… Apparently the satanic “elite” think there are too many of Us.

Even gold has its severe drawbacks. In it’s pure form:
– It can never be eaten to feed the starving
– It will never be used to shelter the homeless.
– Worst of all, no worship of any gold will be helpful in curing my spiritual sickness.
It seems to me that the most honest way to build an economic system would be through basing a local currency on the GDP of the locality of its issuance. That locality can be as big as a country or nation, and as small as a city or community. This is somewhat along the lines of the barter system, which exemplified honest value in return for honest contribution. When “we” lost the honesty, “we” lost our true values.
Of course the problem does arise when one seeks global interaction (trade). Then of course there seems to be a requirement for currency of mutually acceptable value. Perhaps that is in fact the problem with the world today, there is more value attributed to physical icons like gold rather than the true value of the human spirit and what its potential is. The human spirit can overcome all of our woes when it is aligned with God’s will and purpose for us on this Earth.
No amount of gold, fiat currency, bitcoin, oil, or any other physical icon can do that. Although these may be useful (even that is debatable), they in no way represent the human spirit; in fact they generally debase it.

Excellent piece. The sudden acceleration in pushing cashless society is frightening. Swiss society, which is oriented towards democratic rights, remains surprisingly susceptible to this type of sneaky move, and most other countries seem to have even less sense of control over changes of this type. Second to war, this may be one of the most pressing issues to citizens in the western world in the coming year or two.

Good one although I have more hope, probably irrational, for bitcoin to somehow provide a rallying point for resistance .

And who says that the Chinese won’t be just as eager to use the technology to control their citizenry? Unlike many of the people on this blog, I have no illusions about the kind intentions of Chinese bureaucracy of the CCP. They already have two currencies that they play with . ( The Cubans, also, have an internal and external currency for purposes of management and control and with the black market dollars of the underground economy that actually means there are 3 currencies floating around Cuba.)

Interesting that in an article about Puerto Rico, it was mentioned that people could not obtain FEMA help to rebuild their houses because although they had papers to prove that the owned the houses, they had no deeds. Some of my family members who have the $$$ to pay bribes should it come to that also have second homes which are not “registered” with the government. Common practice it is. Well, the government is so corrupt that many people don’t bother because then they would get taxed out of existence by the PR governmental bureaucracy. But FEMA does give them free tickets to the mainland USA if they qualify financially.

The future is about a technocratic elite which serves the global 1%. If you think running simultaneous wars is expensive, just contemplate the costs of putting man-machine hybrids into space. We are not talking squeezing the planet and people for resources to take Jerusalem or ravage the “Holy Land” or seize the “new world”.

This current state of affairs about a qualitatively different scenario which is why social studies departments are being defunded at Universities or taken over by a weird kind of group-think. Let no one pose the question, “Why” or “To What Purpose?” or What kind of people do we really want to be at our core? (would say “soul” but that is so passe these days.)

The whole is not the sum of the parts either anymore than the map is the territory .

Worse, We are being frozen into a set way of viewing physical reality–through robotic eyes and minds. The intelligentsia is big on promoting reruns of “1984” but Brave New World is really being manufactured under their very snotty noses. And we know the ending to that. Either/or thinking ( binary?) wins the day either way.

Good article. Regarding currencies, it’s frequently claimed that a gold-convertible currency is the answer to monetary stability. Indeed, the departure of the US from the gold standard is often cited as the cause of the exponential asset inflation in the 80s and later.

In fact, though, Nixon had no choice. It was shown by Triffin that a reserve currency cannot be pegged to gold. His argument is complex but notes the fact that monetary policy for a reserve currency has conflicting demands between domestic and international needs.

Domestic priorities require inflation of the money supply if the economy is to grow in the classic sense. Otherwise the supply of currency is inadequate to support economic activity and recessions or depressions can occur. However, as the currency is inflated, a loss of confidence occurs among foreign holders of the reserve and payment in gold is demanded.

More generally though, to my mind there is a fundamental dichotomy between an economy based on the principle of infinite exponential growth as is the case under Capitalism, and finite resource limits. If the economy reaches a steady state further profit growth is impossible. This is why writers such as Julian Simon have advanced arguments that resources are essentially unlimited.

It’s therefore not possible to peg a currency to gold or any physical commodity unless the principle of infinite growth is abandoned. Otherwise inflation will inevitably result in loss of confidence in the currency and payment in real commodities will be required.

Which is, I believe, why usury was forbidden in Islam and originally forbidden also in the Christian church.
Am I wrong about this?
Wasn’t it in early Renaissance Florence that people/rulers started finding ways to get around the religious anti-usury laws? To fund mercenary armies? Because the feudal system was breaking down and feudal underlings no longer provided war-manpower but freelance soldiers had to be located and paid in cashand the cash had to be found somewhere?
Is it possibly Islam’s still-current injunction against usury that makes it a target of Western ire and hatred?

Katherine, you are correct…..as I have said many times before on the Saker blog / website, all three Abrahamic religions have made Usury forbidden / illegal / unlawful.

It is even forbidden for the Jews, but due to the corruption of their scripture(s), the law has been changed to only forbid Usury between Jews and not on non-Jews (gentiles). This is of course completely false and such a thing cannot come from the All Mighty God.

As for your last question…..I can answer that with another question:

If you were part of a banking family or group who wants to make as much money as possible and exploit as much people as possible for power and prestige, and there is another group of people who forbid what you are doing, are spreading information that what you are doing is wrong and have a book where it says:

“O ye who believe! fear Allah and give up what remains of your demand for usury, if ye are indeed believers. If ye do it not, take notice of war from Allah and His Messenger.” (al-Baqara 278-279)

what would you do ? :-) ……I know what I would do…..I would destroy anything related to Islam or at least try to corrupt them from within to get them to accept Usury.

I mean come on…..you have a religion that literally is telling people that God declares war on the entire monetary banking system, and therefore the system (including the people who set it up and are keeping it alive) is waging a war on God and humanity.

Even in a communist society you need a manager who allocate the capital and decides which project is viable and which one is not. You have to pay him to take the correct decision, you can’t accept every projects.
In the 19 th century, in the US, the banker was this guy, his salary was the interests, and if he took bad decisions he could lose everything (his capital) and you had strong competition from other managers -other bankers .
Now if you go back to the middle age, there was no new inventions that could boost the standards of living or create wealth, so the usurer was just financing crusades or the construction of churches/monasteries. Obviously if he got richer, someone had to get poorer. Not during the industrial revolution since an increase in productivity/mechanisation meant falling prices (with nearly the same amount of gold in circulation).
In the 21 th century, the usurer has no longer a productive role since he is there to finance consumption, credit cards, etc. he is no longer there to decide which project is viable or not..And when the pyramide collapse, he is bailout by everybody. He is a parasite.
Usury would be personnal loans for consumption.

Cryptocurrency has value only so long as it is convertible into the national currencies. That is why you count the value of say a Bitcoin in USD. Thus you have Bitcoin equal to let us say 12000 USD. So I don’t understand how Bitcoin is an alternative. All the government needs to do is to make it illegal to convert Bitcoin into any national currency. That would be end of bitcoin. So this article peddling Bitcoin as an alternative and free from government oversight is simply preposterous.
How can one not understand this

Mod. NOTE: Bitcoin convertability into gold and silver is also an option – an option that is already available.

Thank you for your comment.
Bitcoin convertibility into gold and silver will last only so long as it’s convertibility into national currencies (like the USD) lasts. Only because Bitcoin has a value in national fiat currencies, it is convertible into gold and silver.

Cryptocurrencies are fiat electronic currencies that are now working within the current financial banking monetary system.

They have to be simply valued in other fiat banking currencies. If you want to buy a laptop with bitcoin, you pay the dollar value of that laptop in bitcoins, a conversion value.

Crypotcurrencies can be hacked, stolen or exchanges can be shut-down buy world governments who are part of the banking system. Governments can further tax anyone converting bitcoins to their countries banking currency.

Are there fools that actually believe that you can operate outside of the financial economic monetary banking system and its associated world governments ?

Cryptocurrencies are now being used in speculation within future exchanges….they are now worth what the speculators want them to be worth.

As for the digitization of money….this issue has been going on for decades and its purpose is for the banks and their governments to have full control of people and their finances.

I personally believe that nothing short of a nuclear exchange between the super-powers can get us rid of this usurious fiat scam of a monetary system and restart the globe to the good old gold and silver.

A nuclear war is the ultimate retribution on specifically the West and the major powers (including Russia and China) and on mankind in general for letting this scam consume the world.

Rublev…..thank you for letting me know that there are such people :-).

Actually I rarely visit Zero Hedge because i get a head ache from the entire layout of the website. Its painful to read :-). I understand they want to use advertisements, but for goodness sakes do something about the website.

To be honest, I do not like calling people “fools”….but when they are claiming things about currencies and speaking about the topic without research and knowledge then they can spread some really stupid ideas to others.

I have literally spoken with nuclear physicists and college professors about this topic of money, who have zero knowledge on the topic and do even question the system…..but at least they do not spread dumb ideas ;-).

It is an absolute pitty that there are so much “so called” intelligent people who blindly live without questioning anything or have any historical knowledge to compare their current world with.

Regarding crypto-fans. I personally think that one group is “ideological/ethical wishful thinkers”. And the other is “emotionally hooked-up investors” – therefore also wishful thinkers :) (and combination of both of course)

But I’m more scared of the cashless monster breathing its lustful Kontrol-breath on our necks than the “cryptocurrency reality laboratory” many are freely signing into right now…

Cheers.

PS: The idea itself is interesting. But i’m sceptic about the outcome incl. System takeover of the cryptos.

> “Cryptocurrencies are fiat money, based on nothing, not even on gold.”

So, what’s gold based on?

Money is nothing more than a socially accepted material accounting system for power and influence. Fiat money is created on a whim by those who control power. Blockchain money (and gold) is not. Bitcoin creation is managed by algorithm, which is transparent (ie not due to the perverted fantasies of a cloaked cabal). In essence this is similar to gold. The sources of gold and bitcoin are nature and mathematics – not a central dictatorial authority.

For those of you who do not understand these basic monetary terms or why Gold (1) has always and (2) will aways be of value until the end of history….I advise you to do research on the history of money and how people used to live prior to this farce we are now living in at the moment.

This research should be in the basic tool box of any human who is now searching for the truth and is trying to make sense of the we are now living in.

Anonymous…..there is nothing stopping you from also buying gold, silver or any precious metals with the fiat currency you have.

Once the entire “electronic” system collapses…the most powerful people still left on this Earth who have gold stock-piled, will have to use that gold to barter with or pay people to get things done.

Just because powerful people take advantage of something that is good and fair, is no excuse to say it is no different than something that is completely corrupt and unjust. In this way of thinking you give people no alternative, just because corrupt and powerful people exist……This is not logic or realistic.

I do not understand why ignorant people do not see the difference between right and wrong ?
Is it possibly because they do not have or seek knowledge, and thats why they are ignorant to begin with ?

Gold does not depreciate……There are several issues that cause something do decrease in value.
The four most important of these causes are simple wear and tear, obsolescence, depletion and expiration. Gold is not subject to any of these four factors while gold ornaments can sometimes accumulate wear and tear.

The only reason why Gold (among other precious metals) changes value in fiat currency is because the fiat currency is corrupt and changes value do to many reasons like instability and inflation. When there is crises and instabilities the price of Gold in for example dollar goes up because Gold is a source of safety, it does not devaluate.

Gold has no more “intrinsic” value than a tomato. In fact the tomato has more intrinsic value because you can eat it, or plant it and grow a tomato plant out of it. The intrinsic value gold has is mainly tied to its scarcity and how labor intensive it is to mine it. If someone finds a way to synthesize gold, like they did with diamonds, you’ll see how fast the sacrosanct “intrinsic” value of gold goes straight to hell.

At the end of the day, “things” only have the “value” humans decide to give them. There’s no such thing as intrinsic value, which is a word that means: inherent, inborn, natural, built-in (etc). Gold’s value is man-made, artificial, the exact opposite of intrinsic.

Are u joking. How can computer code be like Gold. Algorithm you say. Transparent you say. Can’t another crypto currency be created using another algorithm. Can’t governments also create their own crypto currencies based on similar algorithm. Can’t Sasha the hacker have another algorithm.
Physical Gold or silver or another real asset in contrast can’t be created out of thin air

Gold is based on its utility as a commodity. It was bartered along wheat, wool, weapons, animal skins, fish, thousands of years ago. Because, whose tribal chief would refuse to give 100 fish for an ounce of gold if his wife loves to have this shiny jewel around her neck and give him a good time after?
After it became money because it had all the qualities -rare, can’t rust, soft, fractionnable-
But even if some tribe had decided that a coin with the figure of some king was no longer real money, you could still melt it and make other coins & jewels. That’s why gold has lasted as money for 5,000 years or so.
You can’t do this with bitcoins

“So, what’s gold based on?”
Not sure but I think the intrinsic value of gold is based on the fact that every culture that has developed technologically to the point of understanding basic metallurgy has “discovered” gold and accorded it intrinsic value. I believe this universal recognition of gold is related to the fact that it is immutable. It does not rust; it does not turn into something else as a result of exposure to air or water or tombs or dirt or anything. It is always shiny and gold.

It seems that even a scrip system is based on something, namely, what can be bought for the scrip. It is an elaboration on barter, where actual items are exchanged. Perhaps Bitcoin is similar in that sense. I can’t really grasp Bitcoin having an “intrinsic” value apart from what it will buy. But obviously, that is my mental limitation!

If your understanding of what Bitcoin’s value actually is can be stated as a “mental limitation”, then you are not going to be lonely. There are untold hundreds of millions who suffer the same “limitation”. I guess that commonality amongst so many people is why gold works so very well as a store of value while bitcoin remains something based on hope and promises, rather like fiat…

In regards to Bitcoin, I’m with Peter Schiff on this one. It’s value is ultimately zero. The holder owns nothing real. He buys and hopes on the basis of “bigger fool” theory. Meanwhile nothing is learned from the past. As always, “This time is different!” Stand by and watch the fools get fleeced- this time the millennials.

And I’d like to add: the day the internet is gone, your BTCs will reach their ultimate value: 0.
That is the not so sexy truth about digital data: it is as good as the medium it is stored on and exchanged through.

Which is another reason that all essential services for human survival should “never” be permitted to be in “private” hands.No nation that permits private persons to control those essential services can be independent.Russia and China “used” to understand that truth.But with the rise of wealthy oligarchs they are losing control.The rest of the world fell victim to that decades ago.

…or the opposite. Do you realize that if “all essential services for human survival” are just permitted to be in “public” hands, the same exact oligarchs can put their “public” suit and steal you even further? Those “private” hands actually, big corporations, banks, they are in the same bed than the government or the shadow power; look at FB, Google, etc..So we have already the worst case scenario. Public hands are sometimes worst because you concentrate all the powers -legislative, executive,etc- in the same hands

Maybe I should have added that you don’t allow the oligarchs to hold power in your country. You are correct,that if you do allow them to rule you then you face the same situation.I made the mistake of thinking you knew that I wouldn’t allow that situation.

There used to be such a thing as a “public servant.”
There still are a few, but I bet not at the upper echelons of either government or the private sector.
Everyone who is making a “career” and climbing to the top is out to become part of one elite or another.
Be featured in a society photo spread. Even if just in a corner.
Humility seems to be a thing of the past. At least, in the USA.
“Selfie” more or less describes our culture. Look at me.
Katherine

Bitcoin is already used by the gamblers. A few days ago the “worth” of one bitcoin was about 20000USD, before it dropped below 15000USD and now recovered to nearly 160000USD.

You have to believe in money (paper or digital) for it to have worth attached to it. A financial crash could wipe out deposits of 1 trillion and more and nobody would feel it (only the reaction of not having anything to exchange would be felt). Only hard assets (like machines, a piece of land, etc.) are of real value/use.

Whilst money (the whole monetary system) itself should be a tool it’s getting more and more obvious that it’s something entirely different: a religion, with the skyscrapers of the money changers acting as temples (they’re even higher than church towers).

You shine here. The main problem with the banksters is that they exist. Why would any civilized society hand over their financial control to a bunch of inate criminals? Treat ’em like pirates in the age of sail.

As for electronic money, what happens when the power is down? You guessed it. Not too bright an idea, is it for real people. The capitalist oligarchs don’t give a damn about that aspect, since their servants handle all those mundane things real human beings have to deal with.

Yes, what happens if some country decides to launch a magnetic or something attack on India with its digital currency and wipes out a few power stations?

Poof????
I have heard people say, and have said myself:
Everyone should live in NYC for a year (to experience the interpersonal dynamics of this unique city and stop being a rube).
Everyone should live on a boat for a year (to grasp how to live with little and waster nothing, including of course water).
I’ll add:
Everyone should live in Russia in 1917 for a year (to learn how to cope, psychologically, when everything around you suddenly goes Poof).

The Amazon page quotes Publisher’s Weekly as calling this book an “entertaining apocalyptic thriller.”
Me, I need a “how-to”!
OK, a few acres of arable land far away from a city, defensible (build a watch tower), need water source . . .
Where are we?
Is there a Venn diagram of the potential sites?
Maybe Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
OK, here we go:http://www.vermont.com/northeast-kingdom/business-info/farms-agriculture/.

Don’t be so worried about it. The degeneracy into mass violence you fear, borne of unrealised expectations, reinforced by hunger and cold, goes on for but 10 – 15 days or so. Then the vast majority of people become much more quiescent. They remain hungry and cold sure, but by then they are in a low energy state and resigned to their situation. By this stage there are only a few organised groups you’d need to be wary about. They are avoidable. If not, then there are means to repel them (a little preparation is called for well prior to the troubles breaking out though).

Beware that hiding out in remote locations is no guarantor of avoidance of violence and unsatisfactory outcomes, for those locations are precisely where the most awful behaviours are expressed (perpetrators assess that their chances of getting caught and bearing the responsibility for vile actions to be vanishingly small when they think they are well away from scrutiny). Oddly enough, you are far better to stay closer to what remains of civilisation. This experience is confirmed by from various civil breakdowns in not so distant times (the bankrupted Argentina comes to mind, but there are others).

I have known Aguirres book for years and he made good money selling “doom and gloom” to the sheeple in the “exceptional/indispensable country”. In the not too distant future, the West will be looking back to what happened in Argentina in 2001 and will say “wow, what a great time the Argentines had compared with whats happening right now in our own yard”.
One more thing, do you know that the country that survived “the economic collapse” has one of the lowest emigration rates in the whole Western world ? and this is not because we cannot emigrate easily, 95 % of us can get an European passport (I did it already 25 years ago but not for economic reasons) and live wherever we want in case we start “dying from lack of food” Emigration rate is around 1.6 – 2 % of the whole population, compared to, for example, New Zealand, that has an emigration rate of 15 – 20 %. In the country who suffered a “civil breakdown”, there are living more people from the US than Argentines living in the USA (proportionaly to the % of population)

All very interesting comments regarding the survival mode.
James Kunstler also has thought a lot about this and his advice makes a lot of sense:
Find a medium-size town to live where people know each other.
Intensive and vertical farming can provide a lot of plant food in a relatively small space.
The next Floriade event, in the Netherlands in 2022, will feature the city of Almere, which is being developed as an energy-neutral and I think “food-neutral” city–all needed food produced within the city (kind of like the whole country of Russia now!).http://floriade.com/
I agree that going out into the wilderness to find a spot to grow food is asking to be massacred and perhaps to become lunch for some hungry armed maniacs. Although there are a heck of a lot of bears out there. And coyotes, And deer. But domesticated animals such as humans are much easier to slaughter for food than wild animals. Who really knows how to hunt these days?
Probably my little potato patch, and me, would be history in a second!
Katherine

1. There have been many civil breakdowns during the not so distant past. I selected the well known example of Argentina since I had a friend who experienced it. He came to the islands to rebuild his life and lived the remainder of his time with us. He explained exactly what had happened to him, what he saw and what he heard about. There are lessons one can learn from a person who has direct experience like this. He had it. I listened.

I understand you may be sensitive towards this topic as it is something that happened in Argentina and what occurred there (as well as why it occurred) is not something to be proud about. Still, it did happen. So, best policy is: Deal with it. LEARN from it. Don’t forget it. Same deal goes for other examples also.

2. I do not watch CNN. Neither should you. It is not fit for intelligent people. It is beneath you.

3. This brings us to another point, related somewhat to the first two. The news headlines, reports and commentary (yes, even that on the web) do not in general convey the human experience of people affected by such matters as civil breakdowns, natural disasters, economic malady, socialism, war, hostilities, financial resets (let alone collapses), sovereign defaults, political corruptions, criminality, violence, logistics collapse, crop failure, politics and so on. Behind the news story lies a reality which is neither tidy, nor sterile, nor harmless, nor without moral consequence. Students of the news and students of history habitually ignore this aspect while studying great stories of heroic leaders and their “great” deeds (or, if you prefer, great stories of terrible villains and their malarkey). Much is missed that ought to be learned.

well, I haven’t yet finished this superb article yet – but my reply to the cashless part of this is – local money – it will come – I promise – and I don’t necessarily mean the Saltspring Dollars that already exist – I mean something that does not ever make it into the bank – if you are self – employed – you will be paid in cash – I promise – a new cash

“…Bank’s will call the shots in the future, on your personal economy and that of the state. They are globalized, following the same principles of deregulation worldwide. They are in collusion with globalized corporations. They will decide whether you eat or become enslaved”

Just another data point: Switzerland just bailed out the company that makes the paper they use in their banknotes. I have not seen ATMs closing down (but I always go to the same ones here — I live in Switzerland).

I live in Switzerland as well and I have a different impression. Not only ATMs but banks branches have been dissapearing as well. Post Offices branches (MANY) are also gone in many small places. For example I live a small town (1000 people) and in 2015 the Post office and the only Bank branch closed (ATM included). The goverment says that they have to save money,and in the meantime they bring Eritreans (30000 already)by the thousands and almost all of them live from goverment money but this is a completelly different discussion

I don’t live in a small town (around 30 000 people). So I guess that is why I have not seen many ATMs closing down. I have certainly seen banks move branches where I live (one address closes and another opens). So, yes, we have different impressions. It is true that they are closing (have closed) many Post Office branches (this has been reported extensively and the reduction was announced officially beforehand).

Having said that, there has been no statement indicating elimination of physical currency. Contrast that with the EU (elimination of the 500 euro) and the calls to eliminate higher denominations of the US dollar. I find that the bailout of the firm producing the paper for the banknotes is interesting. (In fact, the bailout was the data point I wanted to emphasize, which was not clear from my earlier comment.)

Of course, another point of the article is about the power of the banks. Well, in Switzerland the banks have always had quite a bit of influence.

“Well, in Switzerland the banks have always had quite a bit of influence.”

They had and will continue to have. But the exceptionalist racketeer’s bloody fingers are already in the Swiss vaults:

The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States“How ironic—no, how perverse—that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour,” wrote Peter A. Cotorceanu, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. “That ‘giant sucking sound’ you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA.”

Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado casinos. It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.

I had to chuckle at this, “A typical case was Argentina, when she was forced by a New York judge in June 2014 to pay a New York based Vulture Fund US$1.6 billion, an illegal ruling according to a UN resolution. Argentina refuse to pay, so the judge, interfering in a sovereign nation, blocked more than US$ 500 million in Argentina’s debt payment to creditors, bringing Argentina to the brink of a second bankruptcy in 13 years. Eventually, neoliberal Macri negotiated a deal with the Vultures of a payment in excess of US$ 400 million.”

Easily avoidable had Argentina government not so recklessly borrowed all that money in the first place. What a pack of despicable rats.

Argentina did not do someting different to what EVERY goverment around the world is doing. Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, US, France, Canada and many others borrowed much more than Argentina, the difference being that they are borrowing in its own currency (and the Central Banks are buying the debt in the case of the Europeans) and Argentina had to borrow in hard currency. I am not saying that Argentina did the right thing, I am just saying that sooner or later all the above mentioned countries (and MANY OTHERS) will do EXACTLY the same. Just wait and you will see lots of defaults coming.
By the way, I am from Argentina, so thanks a lot for the “despicable rats”.

The term “despicable rats” is directed to the subject, the Argentine government and not towards Argentinian people in general (only those who are involved with or inside of the Argentine government).

Couple of points:

What other despicable rats are doing does not make a course of action valid or justifiable.

You are correct. There are going to be plenty of defaults. There are going to be a lot of people suffering, some deservedly and some not so much. It will be awful. It is therefore a good idea to learn from the previous occasions where there have been civil breakdowns and what has happened during those. It is also important to learn from the deficiencies of coercive centralised systems of government, finance and so on. They are best avoided as totally unfit for civilisation as they are so utterly unfit for people- immoral also.

“[..] borrowed much more than Argentina, the difference being that they are borrowing in its own currency (and the Central Banks are buying the debt in the case of the Europeans) and Argentina had to borrow in hard currency.”

Most countries in the world borrow in the World’s Reserve Currency (WRCs), that’s manly the US dollar, but it often includes a ‘basket’ of other currencies such as the EURO or more importantly: the IMF issued currency; SDRs (Special Drawing Rights). Very few countries get their borrowed money in their own currency and I have no idea what you mean by “hard” currency, but I digress.

The main thing was that some of the original creditors sold on their Argentine bonds (debt) to Vulture Funds, who then in turn added exorbitant compounded interests to them. Argentina was more than happy to pay off the original creditors (the few who didn’t sold off their bonds), but not the Vulture Funds, and certainly not at the levels of interest they demanded to be paid, that weren’t even part of the original deal with the original creditors when the bonds were issued. That’s what it went down in a nut shell.

Since my old laptop died, I lost all my bookmarks with it, so I can’t link you to an article I had that explains it all very concisely and clearly, but if you wanna learn all about this just google; Argentina – Vulture Funds – Greg Palast.

In fact (at least to my knowledge) Palast was the first one to expose the Vulture Funds; who they are, how they operate (etc) and he did it way before the Argentinian story broke, a couple of years prior (?) I can’t remember now. (I just checked now, he has updates on this story all the way up to early 2016 for those interested).

When the Argentine government borrowed money they executed an agreement with lenders. Is it correct that the agreement included an acknowledgment and acceptance that penalties (including higher interest rates, fees and other costs) could be levied by the lender or holder (a purchaser) of the note (the bonds) were the borrower to become overdue or delinquent? If so, then the so-called vulture funds are well within their rights to ramp up the interest and fees (as well they ought), especially were they to have purchased the bonds once it became known that they were already a risky proposition (that is, that the Argentine government was already known to be a delinquent debtor or expected to likely be such).

The Argentine government is not very credit worthy. As such, and with the consistently dreadful record of spending their people into perdition and defaulting, whenever they sally forth begging to borrow yet more loot anyone considering lending to them needs to exercise great caution. Suitable penalty clauses are a good mechanism to include in lending agreements- doubly so if you are risking lending to a government. Whoever ends up holding that note will likely need to threaten to exercise or indeed actually exercise the penalty clauses in order to retrieve their money (or at least a portion of it).

From a borrower’s point of view the moral of the story is never, ever borrow anything unless you can service and repay the debt on time.

Siotu quote: “From a borrower’s point of view the moral of the story is never, ever borrow anything unless you can service and repay the debt on time.”

Easy to say when the majority of the populations of any country don’t want to borrow on the first place, but it’s done on their name and against their will. Even when they’re not borrowing, debt is foisted upon them by ‘economic hit men’ like John Perkins explains in his book.

In Argentina’s case (like in many other countries around the world too) their debt was caused in its entirety by the Hegemon, their minions (foreign and domestic), their criminal meddling and their policies, it wasn’t Argentinians going cap in hand “begging” for money because they had nothing better else to do.

Here’s a surprisingly honest article from the Economist;

“In 2002, Argentina defaulted on its debt, which had been accumulated as a result of extremely poor economic management by successive governments. A large part of this debt was generated during the military’s dictatorship, which conducted a “dirty war’ between 1976 and 1983 on its political opponents. This was a murderous period which saw the disappearance of nearly 30,000 political opponents.

This was followed by a poorly executed and suicidal war against Britain over the Falklands/Malvinas islands. Between 1983 and 2001, a number of democratic governments managed Argentina following the now discredited neoliberal economic policies based on the Washington Consensus. These policies had catastrophic consequences, amassing billions of dollars in debt.”

Siotu quote: “[..] to become overdue or delinquent? If so, then the so-called vulture funds are well within their rights to ramp up [etc]”

Argentina had to restructure the debt, some creditors agreed, some didn’t, the US intervened and ordered Argentina to pay the restructured debt only if she also paid the others in full.

From the same article;

“Some 93% of bondholders subsequently agreed to exchange their defaulted debt for new securities, accepting a write-down of 65% [..] The remaining creditors rejected the offer, with some pursuing full payment through the courts instead. A group of them, led by Elliott Management, a hedge fund, has secured a number of victories in courts in New York, under whose law the original bonds were written. One of those rulings barred Argentina from paying interest on the restructured debt unless it also paid the holdouts in full. The court also forbade banks with operations in America from facilitating such payments.”

The key of the matter seems to be that the original bonds didn’t include “collective-action clauses” which could force bondholders to accept the restructured terms if a large portion of the creditors agreed to them. Ok, fair enough, but by the same token if there wasn’t a clause that explicitly said, something along the lines; all get paid or no-one does, Argentina was well within their rights to pay the 93% of the bondholders that did accept the new terms, and either re-negotiate or default on the rest. BUT! They weren’t allowed to, by who? Your usual suspects…

I wrote, “From a borrower’s point of view the moral of the story is never, ever borrow anything unless you can service and repay the debt on time.”

It is not only easy to write this (or say it), it is also easy to live by it. It is far easier to live by that rule than to attempt to live in spite of it. There are no free lunches in this life.

You mentioned, “…the majority of the populations of any country don’t want to borrow on the first place, but it’s done on their name and against their will.”

There has to be some sympathy for this view. The borrowing is done “in the name of” the civil population of a nation by those in government. Those despicable rats who borrow and partake in the spending of the borrowings are not directly and personally on the hook for servicing and repaying the debt they personally have incurred. Instead “everyone” is on the hook for it. That is criminal. Fraudulent really. Where sympathy ceases is in the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people accept this state of affairs as a legitimate arrangement. It is certainly not done against their will in that they continue to support the very individuals who are defrauding them. They vote, abet, obey and pay for their own fleecing. As is well said, “the people have the best government money can buy”.

Quoting, “Argentina was well within their rights to pay the 93% of the bondholders that did accept the new terms, and either re-negotiate or default on the rest.”

No, the government of Argentina was not within its rights to default on any part of the debt it had accumulated- not at all. And the outcome of the litigation clearly demonstrated this fact to them (and to others).

Look, this is basic stuff. If one borrows money, one is not within his or her rights to subsequently decide to only repay a portion of what was borrowed. To do that is committing the crime of theft. No-one has a right to commit theft. Not even the people in governments.

Renegotiation is an acceptable and available approach for a distressed debtor to pursue, but it is the creditor who has the right to decide whether to accept or a haircut or not. In this case there were creditors who said no. At that point either the debtor pays up or the creditor takes possession of collateral or asset in the effort to be made whole (to recover that which is the property of the creditor, the money).

Meanwhile, the people did nothing. Mind though, they did get to experience a good old dose of socialism and even a popular war (at least it was popular until the Poms won it- which was an inevitability that a reasonably informed person would have understood well before the shooting began). Oh well, never mind. Anyway, the government people are out there borrowing again and the rest of the people are doing just what they did before- nothing.

Officially numbers of US debt is around 20 Trillion. Unofficial numbers are way higher (between 44 and 60 Trillion). Puerto Rico is bust, so is Detroit. Illinois is close to bankruptcy. The future for Houston doesn’t look pretty (the term “Houston we’ve got a problem.” may get an entirely different meaning). Many more US states, counties, cities and public institutions will run into serious problems as well. Why was the mayor of Detroit permitted to strong-arm the creditors (pensioners) into accepting a haircut? Debt is debt and has to be repaid! The pensioners (creditors) should’ve resisted and let the city default over and over and over again until fully recovering their losses. Lets hope the creditors of Houston and Illinois will follow your advice and demand full repayment. In case some selling claims for pennies on the dollar I hope that the buyer (thus legal successor) will enforce full repayment (including accumulated interest).

In the past election Argentinians were tricked into voting some neoliberal government. Right after the elections the new government decided to fire several state employees. Why does a government that saves money by firing people need to borrow money? The facts don’t add up.If Argentinians are at fault that they’re doing nothing against the actions of their government, then US citizens are responsible for their murderous government. Since the end of WW II the blood-thirsty US government managed to kill more people than Nazi Germany. What did US citizens do? They’re doing just what they did before – nothing.

Good summary of our current situation. We will not be able to stop digitization as we have not been able to stop almost anything so far coming from the gangsters running western and most of the world economy.

China and Russia have been doing something very interesting. Instead of trying to change or somehow penetrate the current financial institutions they created a parallel one. No doubt that they will succeed in making it work. The point is that they may become yet another gang in the future.

This leave us thinking about cryptocurrencies as a possible way to escape from this ultimate aggression to our freedom (no rhetoric). Bitcoins can be a solution but we still need to improve its fundamentals, like backing it with tangible assets (metals, power plant, etc.). A currency like the dollar is essentially backed by thin air, but is needed to buy energy, commerce, pay debts, etc. In this way bitcoins may exist just because, no need to be backed actually (like currently happens).

But … it would be very interesting if we could invent a bitcoin backed by an asset. Just an idea but if I had a billion euros in steel, who prohibits me to create a bitcoin (with all its basic characteristics) backed with such an asset? Backed maybe at 95% with 5% commission for me for example. What if that billion is collected with a crowdfunding program, what if….., what if….. we need to use our imagination.

Just an idea but if I had a billion euros in steel, who prohibits me to create a bitcoin (with all its basic characteristics) backed with such an asset?

Not a sausage, absolutely no-one can stop you, particularly since the “cryto-world” is uncharted and for the most part unregulated territory. In fact, Max Kaiser had his own cryptocurrency named; MaxCoin. If it flopped or not, I don’t know, but he did launch it back in 2014.

Another paradigme common use in West and on Sakers blog is the “questions and problems” paradigme.

Peter and Comments are diving in statements and analyses about the prevailing situation and everybody gets silent when someone asks for answers and solutions.

I have seen in major third world countries like India and Brasil that the banking system run as a parallel system to the local system. For example black exchange markets of hard currencies. Its just impossible in over organised countries in Europe where everyhting is spied on and under total surveillance.

I myself dont see any other outcome than slavery and/or riots, and this is exactly what is predicted the Protocols of the Elders of Zions.
The goyim will be forced into hatred killing their own leaders and neighbours out of the situation they have brought themselves in by their sheeple behavior. (See the Greece or Burundi experiments).

What is striking about this discussion is its similarity to a free-for-all religious debate.

Could that be because belief and faith are as central to money as they are to the Ultimate Cause of Everything?

Gold has been respected and believed in for millenia but its believers can also be betrayed and deceived: round dubloons were clipped at the edges, becoming octagonal “pieces of eight”.

Bars can be filled with lead and the filling hole plated with gold. Not everyone can be trained in the weighing skills of an assayist.

The same gold can be pledged to many “paper gold” contract holders, none of whom may ever gain possession. Belief then wavers badly.

It also wavers from the highest highs to the lowest lows for fiat and crytocurrencies as well.

But the subject is treated with such obvious, absolutist conviction for every one of these alternatives tools of exchange from both the extremes of positive belief and negative disbelief, that the rigidity amazes.

What if you used an assortment of various such tools of your own choice, and allowed others to do the same?

What if there was a power outage or a temporary local or even global shutdown of the internet and you did not panic about your Bitcoin, because you had alternatives, until the power or the internet was back up??

(If either NEVER comes back up, you and everyone else will very quickly have much bigger worries to deal with than accessing “the Internet of Money”.)

If your car won’t start, get on your bicycle. If it’s broken, walk, until you can do something about those first two faster means of transportation.

What about flexibility and a variety of tools in your toolbox, instead of just ONE.

A frigging Pantheon of Means of Exchange! With limited “belief” in any one of them.

The elimination of physical cash and the creation of a decentralized ledger system are not necessarily identical. Using electronic payment systems, as they currently exist (swiping a card issued by a bank), is a centralized beast. A bail-in needs to happen with your bank, you have lost a percent of your savings. The bank decides to block your account, you have lost access.

The cryptocurrencies, with their decentralized ledger system, do not allow anyone to take away you access. Of course, volatility currently could have a similar effect (value drops 50%, well you have 50% less buying power). There are lot of cryptocurrencies, so it is not clear how this will play out. For the moment, anonymous transactions seem to be a bit of an illusion. With the computing power behind the spooks, it should not be difficult to trace transactions through the blockchain. Especially if it becomes mainstream (order something for delivery, virtual and real address become connected). I am not saying it is not possible to remain anonymous if you use them, just that one small mistake can remove that. Here I mainly mean bitcoin. I think coins like dash seem like they are trying to solve that problem.

in Cornwall years ago i visited a couple who had some scrub land
and used pigs to clear it of brambles and the like.
i was surprised when he took two pigs to the butchers.
the price of slaughter and butchery was one pig.
i had to feed the young pigs whilst he was away for six hours.
never been near them before, and getting the two pigs into the van
showed how intelligent they were.

True! Those two hogs didn’t just believe what was about to happen to them would be bad: They KNEW it was not likely to be anything in their favor.

How right they were!

But pick up little tidbits of data on The Internet of Money from Andreas Antonopoulos:

You are a smart refugee from a country torn apart by The Empire’s Endless Wars.

You had converted your escape fund to Bitcoin. All you needed was alittle knowledge, a Nokia phone (Andreas claims there are billlions of them now…..they even exist off the grid in places like the Amazon….if there is a solar panel to charge them…) and some time to liquidate immobile assets or cash or gold that might be seized, and you converted much of all you owned to Cryptocurrency. You left yourself a little pocket money, a watch, a little bit of silver for exchange for food.

The majority of your worldly wealth is IN YOUR HEAD.

No, I don’t just mean your creativity or your survival wits. I mean your memory. Even a little plastic crypto-hard wallet could be confiscated. Your memory cannot be so easily stolen from you,

How exactly, have you preserved some financial stake with which to begin a new life, in your head??

Your cryto-currency account has a “seed” of 12-24 random words that in the event of loss of your hard wallet can regenerate the account from nothing but your memory of those words.

Before you set off for your new life, you have tested yourself many times a day for many days or weeks. Those words are now programmed in your brain, and in the exact, proper sequence.

(I’d go with the 12 word seed…..me thinks!)

THE POINT:

Besides just thinking about your own beliefs, preferences, adopted ideology, etc, try getting in the minds, not just of the psychopathic control freak bankers, but ALL of concerned humanity.

But It is rising, not falling. It’s a messy process, but it IS rising, IMHO.

Back to the porcine analogy of oldnik007:

I like Catherine Fitts and she knows a lot, but the gravitational pull from Wall St and the corruption of her own base of subscribers limits her conciousness badly, IMHO.

Her warnings should be heeded, but don’t take counsel of your fears or leadership from a base like hers, that she admitted polling as to what they would give up, of their net worth, their investments, their “returns” to challenge the Powers That Shouldn’t Be.

The result of her poll? NOTHING! They would give up ZERO. For greater freedom from slavery for themselves OR anyone else.

As I commented at the time: “That bunch is as useless as tits on a boar hog.”

Put the wishful thinking aside for a minute. Ultimately a bitcoin is worthless. Seriously.

Look, you can remember all you like. Well done your memory. Super duper. So what?

In the end bitcoin is not tangible. There is nothing there except a promise and what is in your imagination. OK if everyone else around you imagines the same as you (you share a culture) -that this is a good store of value. Too bad for you when they realise it aint anything (culture is changed).

You do not own the code, the software, the algorithm, the communications network, the encryption, any of the systems that you are relying on for your bitcoin. You own none of it.

You do not control the code, the software, the algorithm, the communications network, the encryption, any of the systems that you are relying on for your bitcoin. You control none of it.

What you do not own and do not control can (and does) change in ways that may not be as you expect and that may not be in your interest. You can’t stop this.

Good luck setting off in your new life. For when you arrive at wherever it is you think you are going to escape to, you are going to be disappointed. You are bringing the same issues with you that you sought escape from. The locals will likely not appreciate that.

Worse luck is that you are hoping that in the new location your physical needs are going to be able to be satisfied with this imaginary thing you remember a password for. What makes you think anyone there will want to have anything to do with it? What makes you think anyone there will want anything to do with you?

Remember, you are going to be the alien. You’ll be the immigrant. You and they will not share culture likely as not. Your tradition is different, your values will differ from theirs in may ways (some significant, some subtle), your interests will be convergent, you’ll be the stranger, you’ll not be completely trusted at first (if ever), you’re not of local family, kith and kin…. You are immigrating to their community (which presumably is better than the one you seek to escape) from community that is failed. You are a member a population which ruined its own place of living. They’ll see that and know it. You are arriving during a time of crisis when they too will be under stress. And, as stated, they’ll see you as running from a wreckage you were involved with…

By the way, this is why we do not like open borders and open immigration. We do not want welfargees and economic refugees. We do not like or want a different culture to that which is ours already. Consider this.

Worse than economic refugees are bankers who’re creating money out of thin air and lend this to borrowers for interest. When they’re not lending money they don’t have, they engage in gambling (so called investment banking). If everything goes well, they receive horrendous bonus payments. If they eff up, they get bailed-out (the latest scam is called bail-in that probably will hurt even those with small savings). They don’t add anything (zilch) at all to the real economy. The real economy is made up by those with value adding jobs (craftsmen, teachers*, …) and maintenance jobs (janitors, medical staff, …).

There is no law requiring anyone to use currency-other than to pay ones tax in it-the basic extent of legal tender.

So it would seem converting to Real Money-other than for basic transactions-would solve all the problems explored above-and would be exactly the opposite of a “common” controlled economy=a personal exclusive economy where outright physical theft is the only real threat; just like it always was.

Not usually one for the “I told you so” form of argument, this was something I could see with the introduction of ATMs and credit cards. ATMs were sold on the basis that saving labour costs would reduce bank charges. which they didn’t, of course. Paying by credit card or debit card meant that customers paying cash would pay more. As no business was going to absorb the costs of the transactions, which businesses were charged for, obviously that meant that paying cash meant you were paying more if cash prices were not adjusted to account for the percnetage charged by the banks, and the interest lost by the time it took for businesses to receive payment. The effect was that businesses were lending banks money for free. When you took into consideration that workers began to get paid on a monthly basis, rather than a weekly basis, then the scam can be seen for what it is. You were expected to pay your rent a month in advance, while you received your salaries a month in arrears. That’s a hell of a lot of money someone is holding onto. Yet few people seemed to see it then and few seem to see it now. When businesses and banks hold onto cash they stifle the economy, as customers have no money to buy. Credit can only fill so much of the gap for so long. That point become history a long time ago.

Everyone pays in advance, but receives the dough only after the transaction is completed when a person stays in the host’s extra room.
So, Airbnb is basically a bank, wallowing in cash it can lend out in short-term markets.
This is why I would like to avoid having to use Airbnb as either guest or host.

We don’t have paper money in England any more, notes are made of slithery smooth, shiny, crease-less, thin plastic. You pay for something and hand over three instead of one as they all stick together, Nobody has a good word to say about them and no one likes them at all, not even the Queen.

The solution to this is for people to setup a secondary money system even as simple a issuing receipts for this electronic money held in banks. That is how the goldsmiths started the current system 300 years ago.

The current banking system and the shadowy people that control it need to be broken. Attempting to force on everyone this cashless society will be their biggest ever mistake because most people will see thru this. We saw riots in London in 2011 and youd see ones ten or twenty times that size worldwide if this was implemented and civil war in USA – the Southern States particularly would suscede having been well aware of what the carpetbaggers did to them after the civil war.

I dont understand how Bitcoin and the others work but unless they are backed by something real they are worthless in real terms.

This is where Russia if its smart could step in setup an international currency (coins & notes) to thwart any such system in the West in the future.

Quoting, “Attempting to force on everyone this cashless society will be their biggest ever mistake because most people will see thru this.”

And most people do precisely nothing whatsoever. That is not about to alter any time soon.

Quoting, “We saw riots in London in 2011 and youd see ones ten or twenty times that size worldwide if this was implemented and civil war in USA.”

Not likely. Electronic currencies, digital cash equivalents and the like are already very common. No-one cares really all that much.

Quoting, “the Southern States particularly would suscede having been well aware of what the carpetbaggers did to them after the civil war.”

Again, no. The vast majority of people are just not at all concerned about electronic currency and digital cash. They do not care a whit about this stuff. “Now what is it that the Kardashians are doing today?”, they’ll ask. For them such pursuits are of more relevance.

Anyway, the people who were around during the War of Northern Aggression are all dead and gone. Few among the living know much about the carpetbaggers of more than a century ago, let alone give a toss.

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